In Solid Organ Injury Patients Requiring Blood Transfusion, Hemostatic Procedures are Associated with Improved Survival Over Observation

INTRODUCTION: Selective nonoperative management (NOM) is the standard of care for blunt solid organ injury (SOI). Hemodynamic instability is a contraindication for NOM, but it is unclear whether the need for blood transfusion should be a criterion for instability. This study looks at the outcome of blood-transfused SOI patients to determine whether NOM is safe for this group. METHODS: This is a retrospective cohort study using the National Trauma Data Bank years 2017 through 2019. We selected patients with blunt liver, spleen, and kidney injuries. Within this group, we compared the mortality for those managed with NOM versus the hemostatic procedures of laparotomy and angioembolization. Significance for univariate analysis is tested with Chi-square for categorical variables. Multivariate analysis is performed with Cox proportional hazards regression with time-dependent covariate. RESULTS: 108,718 (3.5%) patients for the years 2017 through 2019 had a SOI. 20,569 (18.9%) of these received at least one unit of packed red blood cells (PRBCs) within the first 4 h. Of the SOI patients who received blood, 8264 (40.2%) underwent laparotomy only, 2924 (14.2%) underwent embolization only, and 1119 (5.4%) underwent both procedures. The adjusted odds ratios (ORs) of death for transfused SOI patients who underwent laparotomy only, embolization only, and both procedures are 0.93 (P = not significant), 0.27 (P < 0.001), and 0.48 (P < 0.001), respectively. The ORs of death with laparotomy for patients receiving >1 through 4 units are 0.87, 0.78, 0.75, and 0.72, respectively (P ≤ 0.01 for all). For embolization, the ORs are 0.27, 0.30, 0.30, and 0.30, respectively (P < 0.001 for all). CONCLUSION: Laparotomy is independently associated with survival for patients who receive >1 unit of PRBCs. Angioembolization is independently associated with survival for the entire cohort, including transfused patients. Given the protective association of laparotomy in the blood-transfused SOI group, need for blood transfusion should be considered a meaningful index of instability and a relative indication for laparotomy. The protective association with angioembolization supports current practices for angioembolization of high-risk patients in the transfused and nontransfused groups.